Fastest programming language

Have you ever wondered why some languages execute faster than the rest? If this is so, which is the fastest programming language? This is what we will learn ahead in this article. But first, we need to know what type of languages exist before diving into which one is the fastest.

There are many two types of languages. Compiled and interpreted languages.

Every program is a set of instructions, whether it’s to add two numbers or send a request over the internet. Compilers and interpreters take human-readable code and convert it to computer-readable machine code.

An analogy

Imagine you have a hummus recipe that you want to make, but it’s written in ancient Greek. There are two ways you, a non-ancient-Greek speaker, could follow its directions.

The first is if someone had already translated it into English for you. You (and anyone else who can speak English) could read the English version of the recipe and make hummus. Think of this translated recipe as the compiled version.

The second way is if you have a friend who knows ancient Greek. When you’re ready to make hummus, your friend sits next to you and translates the recipe into English as you go, line by line. In this case, your friend is the interpreter for the interpreted version of the recipe.

Compiled Languages

Compiled languages are converted directly into machine code that the processor can execute. As a result, they tend to be faster and more efficient to execute than interpreted languages. They also give the developer more control over hardware aspects, like memory management and CPU usage.

Examples of purely compiled languages are C, C++, Erlang, Haskell, Rust, and Go.

Interpreted Languages

Interpreters run through a program line by line and execute each command. Here, if the author decides he wants to use a different kind of olive oil, he could scratch the old one out and add the new one. Your translator friend can then convey that change to you as it happens. Interpreted languages were once significantly slower than compiled languages.

Examples of common interpreted languages are PHP, Ruby, Python, and JavaScript.

A Small Caveat

Most programming languages can have both compiled and interpreted implementations – the language itself is not necessarily compiled or interpreted. However, for simplicity’s sake, they’re typically referred to as such.

Python, for example, can be executed as either a compiled program or as an interpreted language in interactive mode. On the other hand, most command line tools, CLIs, and shells can theoretically be classified as interpreted languages.

Why is C the fastest language?

We have already learned that compiled languages are faster than interpreted languages. C is the fastest among all of the compiled languages. So what is actually so special about C? The answer is that there is absolutely nothing special about C. That is exactly why it is the fastest language.

High-level languages like JavaScript or Java or Python provide certain functionalities that make them slow on runtime. These include functionalities like garbage collection, dynamic typing (JavaScript allows you to write any type of value in any type of variable, and then the v8 engine has to determine what has to be done ), memory leak detection, portability(need to write something like a lightweight virtual machine which runs on top of an operating system which has to be then coded individually for every other operating system so that the code can run anywhere).

There is additional processing overhead which will degrade the performance of the application in other languages. C doesn’t have any of that, which means that there is no overhead. This although means that the programmer needs to be able to allocate memory and free them to prevent memory leaks, and must deal with static typing of variables.

There is a trade-off the C designers have made. That’s to say, they made the decision to put speed above safety. C won’t:

Check array index bounds
Check for uninitialized variable values
Check for memory leaks
Check for null pointer dereference

When you index into an array, in Java it takes some method call in the virtual machine, bound checking, and other sanity checks. That is valid and absolutely fine because it adds safety where it’s due. But in C, even pretty trivial things are not put in safety. For example, C doesn’t require memory to check whether the regions to copy overlap. It’s not designed as a language to program a big business application.

Another important reason is that Java is built on C, Python is built on C (or Java, or .NET, etc.), and Perl is, etc. The OS is written in C, the virtual machines are written in C, the compilers are written in C, and the interpreters are written in C. Some things are still written in Assembly language, which tends to be even faster. More and more things are being written in something else, which is itself written in C. So basically they all took C and improvised all the missing things in it. Hence C is the platform on which other high-level languages are built and so it is closer to the machine than the rest. This is why it beats the other languages in runtime as it is far simpler than the rest.

Listing out functionalities that are provided by languages like Java and not C :

Array index bound checking
Uninitialized variable values checking
Check for memory leaks
Check for null pointer dereference
Automatic garbage collection
Run-time type checking
Exception handling

and there are more such features that are not present in C.
Extra features come at a cost and the cost includes decreased speed and increased size.
Let’s take an example of dynamic allocation in C and Java
Java:

MyClass obj = new MyClass();
Code language: C++ (cpp)

The size of the obj is not considered. The reason being it is automatically handled by the language itself in the background and you don’t have to write specific code for it.
But in the case of C :

struct MyStruct *obj = 
malloc(sizeof(struct MyStruct));
Code language: C++ (cpp)

As you can see in the above code the tasks of assigning a reference to a pointer, and allocation of size is done explicitly by the programmer and at last free up allocated memory.
The array bound check is supported by Thumb Execution Environment (ThumbEE), its other features include automatic null pointer checks on every load and store instruction and a special instruction that calls a handler.
Another reason is the closeness of C to the Assembly language, in most cases its instructions directly map to the assembly language, C is only one or level two levels of abstraction away from the assembly language while Java is at a minimum of 3 levels of abstraction away from the assembler.

Conclusion

Generally, C is preferred for tasks that require to be executed quickly, and hence the programmer has to deal with minimum runtime. The cost paid while using C is the absence of functionalities provided by other languages. Hence C is the fastest language.

Have a nice day!